The Baby Boat Programme

Transactions on the Built Environment vol 65, © 2003 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 The experience of the boat - the Baby Boat Programme V.Salamon Faculty of Graphic Arts, University of Zagreb, Croatia Abstract The paper presents the showlworkshop "Experience of the Boat" which was established by the NGO Ars Halieutica to be performed for and with the active participation of the local children. The show and the workshops are performed both on the shore and on the water. The show "Ala Falka!" is presented in order to inspire the children to express their new experience of the boat in a painting, a sculpture, a poem etc., in the subsequent art workshops. The idea of the ship and the boat is presented through the story of the two traditional Adriatic boats - the simple trupa from the river Neretva delta and the - more complex fishing boat gajeta falkusa the vessels small enough to present the archetypal essence of the boat in a simple and intimate way. Although structurally elementary but including all the basic features of the boat and the ship, both the trupa and the gajeta are the boats of fascinating functional complexness. According to the Ars Halieutica "Do Touch" principle, the polytechnic heritage and the experience of living with the sea is presented through animation of all senses of the children and other participants of the programme. Taking active part in the events, the children are offered to: touch while building the paper or wooden kit ship and boat models, buildinglassembling the actual trupa and the gajeta falkusa, paddling and rowing and sailing the gajeta and the trupa etc., watch the actual building of the trupa and the gajeta, documentary films on life with the sea, on the sailing of the gajeta falkusa etc., listen to the poetry in native dialect, to the songs and music about the sea, about the boat and the man etc., taste and scent the traditional national food and beverages, aromatic Mediterranean island herbs etc. Transactions on the Built Environment vol 65, © 2003 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 52 Maritime Heritage 1. The programme objectives 1.1. The establishment of the ship and the boat as the true cultural value In our culture, on the global level, the maritime heritage, the heritage of the fishermen, the mariners, the shipwrights and other participants of the maritime history is unjustly neglected. It is true for the material aspects of the maritime heritage but even more so for the non-material, the non-tangible aspects of the maritime culture. In presenting the Man's art of building, the architecture, the buildings on solid ground are exclusively presented. The art of building boats and ships, the naval architecture, the architectura navalis, is almost entirely ignored. The knowledge, the arts and the skills of the shipwrights, the mariners and the fishermen are lost without a trace. And yet, the boat, the ship, one of the oldest man-made objects, is and has always been an important subject in man' life, embodying certain features that cannot be attributed to any other product of the human hands. Man's relation to the ship is determined by the fact that the ship is more than a house, more than a town, in sailing the ship becomes a planet, the world within itself, thrust into the space, into the cosmos of the ocean. For a long time in history the ship was the only product of human hands that has been christened. The ship was also entitled to have afuneral - each year on the day of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of travellers and mariners, old boats are burnt in Komiza on the Adriatic island of Vis in the sacred fire for protection of all other ships and mariners. In the huge variety of human symbols the ship is among the richest in meaning, almost an archetype. The ship is a vessel, an ark, a container, strongly related to the alchemist's bowl, hermetic vessel or a woman's womb. The ship is also both the cradle and the coffin. Numerous myths and legends of various civilizations in history, as well as the archaeological finds around the world, point out the ship as means of transportation of the souls of the dead but also as an ark that rescues lives in a cataclysm. The ship's structure is explicitly anthropomorphic: the ship's keel corresponds to the human spine; ship's frames are secured to the keel like the ribs are secured to a spine in a human body; the ship's planking protects the inside of the ship like the skin does the internal organs; the ship's oars correspond with arms and legs, the sails with the wings - the object of man's eternal desire etc. Opposite to the theme of defence and physical integrity of the square sanctuary, the curvature of the ship's form reminds of the roundness of the female body, emphasizing the theme of intimacy, gentleness, peace and safety. Man has gradually learned certain order in the behaviour of the wind and the sea. But to his mind sailing remains essentially the same as it has always been - overcoming the waters of abyss, overcoming chaos, reaching peace. Man has eventually learned the behaviour of various materials, in various loads, of different designs of the ship's structure, all in the never-ending effort to improve the design. But the ship remains his only product, the product of his hands, that he himself does not consider a thing, a lifeless object - to man the ship is a living creature. Transactions on the Built Environment vol 65, © 2003 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 Maritime Heritage 53 Moreover, "The Ship, She is a Lady" as the English would say. And not unlike a beautiful lady the ship or the boat may inspire a very distinctive subjective, even intimate, personal view. The eternal man's relation to the ship is clear. The ship, a naval object, has always been an important subject in man's life. It is for that reason that the boat was found to be the most suitable object to present the experience of the man's art of building through the "Experience of the Boat" programme. Presenting the "Experience of the Boat" programme to various audiences in Croatia and abroad clearly displays the boat's bonding power in opening the dialogue among people of different cultural heritage. The audience and the workshop participants instantly, easily and with great joy recognize the universal transethnic features of our Mediterranean, Adriatic, Istrian or Dalmatian boats, but were also always fascinated by the specific ethnic features, by the local boat design "dialect" which proved to be as distinctive and attractive as the local dialect or music. The effect was further supported and complimented by the local dialect and music in the "Experience of the Boat" programme. Offering their recognizable features of the universal mutual heritage, we have found that boats easily initiate the dialogue across and because of the differences. 1.2. Conveying the experience of the measure One of the important objectives of the "Experience of the Boat" programme is to convey the experience of living with the sea. The eternal story about the Man and the Boat is presented through the shipwright's, the mariner's, the sculptor's, the painter's, the musician's, the poet's and other artists' experience of the boat and the sea. Since the modern man is creating the dangerous disturbance within the natural balance, the programme is primarily focused on presenting the experience of measure, the very essence of the experience of the sea and the boat. It is shown how the experience of measure, of non-opposing the nature, is displayed in the boat's curved body shaped to give little resistance in the water, in the idea of making the boat watertight by simply letting the water in to soak and swell the planking which then seals the hull, in sailing against the wind by letting the wind itself take the boat in the desired direction etc. The boats presented in the programme - the simple trupa, the boat from the Neretva river delta and the more complex gajeta falkusa, the fishing boat from Komiza, island of Vis - are the vessels small enough to present the archetypal essence of the boat in the simple and intimate way, including all the basic features of the boat and ship. At the same time, although structurally elementary, their design reveals fascinating functional complexness. So the trupa is normally used for navigation, but also as the child's playground while the adults work in the fields. The boat can be used as the container for transporting the crop aboard the larger vessel lada. Trupa turned upside down is used as a shelter in a rainy storm etc. Transactions on the Built Environment vol 65, © 2003 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509 54 Maritime Heritage The fascinating design of the gajeta falkusa wonderfully balances the multitude of mutually opposing demands that the functional features of the two entirely different vessels should be united in one boat solely - the features of the sailinglrowing boat of large displacement and the features of the manoeuvrable light and low fishing boat. The perfect balance of the colliding requirements achieved with the gajeta falkusa design represents the true example of the experience of the right measure of the local maritime society. Through the story of a small boat the programme "Experience of the Boat" aims to help transferring the idea of balance in living with the nature of our ancestors to the modem man and, above all, to the children.

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